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Some bloggers write as a side project, some make a reasonable living from it, and a lot of us do it because we want to be some sort of writer or a journalist. Those of us who do that are used to the struggling life of a writer, we know what it’s like to suffer in order to perfect our craft. It involves spreading ourselves far too thin, and staring at a blank white page on Word in the ugly hours of the night. Then we go to our normal jobs looking like a homeless version of one of the witches from Hocus Pocus. It is a delightful experience of everybody.

Who even gets to be a journalist now? Is it anybody who can afford to do a Masters at a prestigious journalism school? Is it someone with the right connections? Or can we chock it up to dumb luck? Journalism is one of the least secure career paths you can choose, stability is not on the cards and financially you’re not in for a pot of gold unless you’re secretly Piers Morgan. If you want to go into this field, you need a thick skin and an arrogant edge that tells you you’re the best. You’ll get no where without self belief.

These are the things I know about the path to getting your job as a writer or journalist. If you need me, I’ll be sat in a corner chewing on my hair, because this job path has driven me to insane and unbelievable actions. Read all about it, Goldilocks ruined her hair! Suffered for art! Continue reading →

Note: I don’t often do personal posts, but as the year ends I think it’s important to show growth. xo2013: What happened?

The New Year
I started off this year at the top of the Empire State Building. The rest of the year was never going to compare to the harsh whips of wind against my face at the top of one of the most inspirational buildings in the world. It’s the only building I can sketch from memory, and the only thing I draw from instinct. I had been to New York twice already, but this would be my last in a while and I sat in an accepting silence in that mustard yellow taxi back to JFK. Sometimes great loves have to stand still, until real life slows down. The day I came home and hit pause on my love for New York, I hit the start button on my relationship with Rhys. Continue reading →

Street artist Bansky submitted a controversial Op-Ed to The New York Times. It was rejected, due to the newspaper’s inability to agree on the piece or the images used. The piece was then posted as a NYT mockup on Banksy’s own website, among many things he stated that the new One World Trade Centre is evidence that “the terrorists won” and that New York has lost it’s nerve. New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy also told the New York Post that “What he has posted on his site is not exactly the same as what he submitted.”

“It would be easy to view One World Trade Centre as a betrayal of everyone who lost their lives on September 11th, because it so clearly proclaims the terrorists won.”

It has been a few days since I arrived back from my New Years trip to New York. I’ve been to the city twice before, so seeing the homeless is not a startling sight for me or a fresh revelation. One would think the most inspiring thing in the city are the lights of the Empire State Building, the view of the skyline from Dumbo, or the deafening silence of Central Park. I do think all these things are inspiring to the human brain, a mind that hasn’t been poisoned by the pollution of cynics. But one moment changed things for me and the outlook on my own financial situation. Credit card bills, overdrafts, a car running out of petrol at every moment possible, these annoyances that occur in my daily life are trivial compared to the homeless of New York, shackled with their situation and unable to conjure hope for the future simply by looking up at the city lights. For some inhabitants of New York, there is no way up. Continue reading →